Going green this spring doesn’t have to mean buying an electric car

Not the color green, which we covered in our St. Patrick’s Day blog post. And not green as in the color of the money shoppers might save by purchasing a vehicle with a lower price tag – new or used.

In this case, we’re talking about green as in environmentally friendly, which generally means vehicles with high fuel mileage. Notice, we didn’t say high GAS mileage, since the greenest, most environmentally friendly vehicles are electric – not gasoline or diesel powered. We also don’t want to create any confusion with natural gas-powered vehicles, which also are available.

Obviously, if we considered alternative fuel vehicles and hybrids the list would change dramatically. However, sales of alternative-fuel vehicles barely topped 3.5 million in 16 years, and last year represented only about 2.75 percent of nearly 17 million new cars sold in the United States.

The most successful entry by far has been the Toyota Prius, which held nearly 50 percent market share in 2014 and has sold about 1.5 million through December 2014.

Chrysler Capital is a registered trademark of FCA US LLC and licensed to Santander Consumer USA Inc.
Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Mopar and SRT are registered trademarks of FCA US LLC.
ALFA ROMEO and FIAT are registered trademarks of FCA Group Marketing S.p.A., used with permission.